Month: October 2014

Thirteen years ago, he was ripped from my stomach (well, cut actually…) and today, he moved further north to remove my heart. I thought I had built enough walls…but is it possible to build enough walls against your own children?

“I wanted to see the other kids, I just didn’t want to see you. I was only coming for the presents and you didn’t buy me any of the things I want, so why come?”

This is not the child I raised. I have no idea who this is…

And that is the problem… I can’t accept who he has chosen to be. I don’t know how to reconcile this attempt at manhood with the little boy from a year ago…

I read something the other day – something about the importance of having friends who give the same kind of friendship in return. I ‘get’ that today…

Today, I just wish I had those friends… or at least, one. But I do… Unfortunately, this is the friend who is soon to be taken from me. This is the woman who has been there, unconditionally, for so many years that I’ve forgotten the start date.

A month ago, she’d have remembered and sent me a text this morning. Known how much I need that today. Asked how I am. Told me to hang in there because it will all be okay. That the universe is there somewhere and it will all work out…

I don’t know how I am going to cope with the loss. I know we do. I know we just take it on the chin and move on. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to lose the one person in my life who is always there. Who sends the words when I need them most.

Today, I am missing that friendship. The one that knows that today is so damned hard and that I really just need one person to acknowledge that… Missing people is so selfish… Losing them is too….

I seem to struggle with this life lesson, and it seems to recur frequently… so I’m assuming that just maybe… this is the ultimate lesson of my life. Or, at least one of them….

Letting go of the people who just don’t care. Or perhaps, just not investing as much of my own energy in them.

When you tel someone you are hurting and you desperately need their support, and they turn away… it really doesn’t get more black and white than that. Yet, time and time again, when they reappear weeks or months later, I let them in again. In close. Take them back into my heart. Allow them back behind the barricades. And the cycle repeats…

This year has had some pretty solid blows though. This year has taken its toll. My energy is spent. My giving tree is almost withered. I need to save what is left for the people that matter.

Another blow this week. One of the people closest to my heart. A few months at most. We thought it was a hernia…. I can’t even process this one. This just can’t be real.

So I do not have the energy for the others in my life who disappear when my road is rocky. Always with a great excuse. Always with reminders that they love me and are there for me. But at the end of the day, the words no longer matter…. because my ears are finally deafening to the sounds and my eyes and heart are listening to the actions.

It’s so incredibly hard for me to accept that at this point in time, he hates me… in his mind, I am the reason for all of his angst.

I can psychoanalyse and explain the confused paths of his mind ’til the cows come home… but the fact is…. this is so incredibly hard.

To allow him to make his own choices. To accept that those choices currently don’t include me.

This is my little boy. The child who has always needed that extra bit of love. The child who could never have enough of anything. Nothing satisfies the emptiness in him. And now…

I know I need to let go. I know I need to allow him to be the adult he is determined to be… but he is my little boy. The child I thought would be still living at home until the day he found someone to spend his life with. The child who, only a few months ago, couldn’t handle being away from me overnight.

But somehow, I got it all wrong. I even know how, when I explore the depths of my amateur psychoanalysis…. I know why he sees me as the cause of his anger and hurt. I understand it as well. But it still breaks my heart.

It breaks my heart to realise he isn’t here… but it also breaks my heart to realise life is calmer and easier without him here. Without the anger. We are no longer treading on egg shells, waiting for the next explosion.

No-one told me parenting would be this hard, and no-one told me children wouldn’t fit the mould you imagine… but even more importantly, no-one told me that no matter how much love you give, there is always the chance it will not be enough.

I do not like mornings. I’m sure I’ve mentioned this a dozen times. I also do not understand why daylight savings has to start at the end of school holidays. It’s hard enough convincing everyone to jump out of bed and don school uniforms, without expecting it to happen an hour earlier….

I do love daylight savings though. I love summer. I love the sun on my skin and the sand between my toes. I love the lazy summer evenings in the park and the sleepy Sunday afternoons by the sea.

But nothing will convince me that a crisp summer morning is worthwhile…

I went clothes shopping today and bought three new books… This is me in a nutshell. Don’t get me wrong, I love clothes, and I’m particularly fond of shoes. But books are my obsession.

My bedroom has become my library. My bedhead is a bookshelf, as is the foot, and the bedside tables. There are bookshelves on the walls.

I have boxes of books left to unpack. True friends never suggest I cull my collection. I did that once. I’ve never recovered.

I need new bookshelves. I will happily cover every spare bit of wall in shelves.

I have become a collector rather than a reader of late though. For the first time in my life, I am struggling to read. This isn’t a temporary reader’s block. This has gone on for almost two years now. I’ve read books, but rarely. I haven’t delved truly into the worlds I’ve explored. I cannot find the way inside to lose myself. The promise is there… But I can’t find the right key.

So I shop. I buy more. I fill my shelves with stories which I will one day love. I open pages of old faithfuls, trying to recapture the wonder. Trying to lose myself in the worlds therein. Trying….

I quite like my vices – they make me who I am. I do not like people constantly telling me to quit them.

I am not an alcoholic or drug addict. I am quite against pain for myself, so really can’t see the use in harming others. My vices are simply my own – not so guilty pleasures that form part of who I am.

I don’t intend to quit them. I just wish the masses would accept this – particularly the masses of people I barely know…